


51 Things I Want to Do with You

by starkravingcap



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Cute, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:06:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkravingcap/pseuds/starkravingcap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ellie has a list. Joel is happy to oblige.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Guitar

"Now strum."

The note was sour. Ellie winced, and sighed. Slowly, she turned her head to her left where Joel was sitting. She was still cringing.

"Sorry."

Joel shrugged. The room they were in was buzzing with the sound of the generators running in the middle of the compound. The decision to visit Tommy's for a while had not been an easy one, but Joel had needed supplies badly. He had planned to leave far earlier, but then he'd found a guitar in an abandoned house that wasn't damaged too badly, and he couldn't help himself.

He leaned forward and looked at Ellie's fingers, which were resting lightly on the fret board, "Move your second finger down," He instructed. Ellie complied, and strummed again. The note sounded a little better, but something was still off.

"I think it's out of tune," Joel murmured gruffly. He held out a hand, "Let me take a look."

The young girl handed over the guitar, watching it for a second before pulling her knees to her chest and resting her forearms against them. She placed her chin on the back of her hands.

"I'm never going to be able to do this," She muttered, "This is even worse than whistling. You're wasting your time, Joel."

Joel didn't answer her. He was busy tuning and checking each string. And at the same time, he didn't know whether or not he felt like talking. It had been weeks, almost a month and a half, since the incident at the hospital. And while Ellie was getting back to her normal self, he felt worse and worse as each day passed; and that was strange to him.

_How is it that you can kill hundreds of people without a second glance, but when it comes to that little girl you can't help feelin' bad about lyin' to her?_

The thought had been clawing at him every single day. Then there were the times when everything was calm, like these ones, and he could almost banish those thoughts away – and those days were beautiful. Peaceful, even.

"Joel?"

He blinked, "What's wrong?"

Ellie was watching him closely again. He had always felt uncomfortable when she did that. Those green eyes seemed to go right through him.

"Nothing. You weren't answering me. What's wrong with you?" Ellie asked, quietly.

"Nothin'. Dreamin'," He said, looking down at the guitar. He strummed once, and deciding that the guitar was tuned enough, he handed it back to her, "Wanna try again?"

Ellie brushed hair out of her eyes and nodded, "'Course!"

"Try putting your first finger on the third string, first fret." Joel offered, sitting up and making himself more comfortable. These last couple of days, he had been feeling his age. Nothing, he thought, could be worse than that. He twisted his back and cringed.

The guitar shook in Ellie's hands. She pressed her lips firmly together and frown. She looked up at Joel helplessly, "I don't remember which one that is."

Joel stared at her. Ellie stared back. After a few moments of tense silence, Joel started laughing. It was a quiet, airy laugh, but a laugh all the same. Ellie smiled weakly. Joel shifted again, and patted to the space between his legs.

"C'mere," He said, gesturing Ellie over. She handed him the guitar and crawled over, sitting where he had patted. Joel reached over her and placed the guitar back in her grasp, "Let me show you."

Joel grabbed her left hand and pulled it up to the first fret of the guitar, "Like this. You're gonna put your first finger here, on the third string. Next one goes on the fifth, down here on the second fret. And then this one here goes on the fourth string, on the same fret. You holdin' 'em all down?"

"Yeah." Ellie nodded, pressing down on the strings. With his other hand, Joel grabbed her right one.

"And then, all you have to do is strum," Joel brought her hand down lightly. The sound was full and happy, unlike Ellie's earlier tries. A smile spread across her face, and Joel let go of her hands, "Try it."

Ellie strummed, and the same noise came from the instrument. She her grin widened and she turned around to look at Joel, "Fuckin' awesome!"

Joel smiled, and he nodded a little, "I knew you'd like to learn."

Still holding the guitar, Ellie leaned her head back against Joel's chest. The generators were still buzzing, and they could hear people talking just outside the room. Joel assumed that Tommy was probably looking for the two of them; but Joel just didn't want to move. Who could blame him?

"Thank you, Joel."


	2. Camping

Ellie clasped her hands together on her stomach. She could feel her own abdomen move up and down as she breathed, and she calmly looked up at the sky from where she was lying on the ground. The stars were brighter in the middle of nowhere than they were in the city; Ellie wondered why, since there were no lights in the abandoned zones, but she didn’t bother asking. Rather, she went back to her star watching.

“You’re gonna get sick.”

She rolled her head to the side. Joel was standing above her, backpack slung around his shoulder. Ellie frowned.

“What are you, my mother?” She stuck her tongue out at the older man.

Joel grunted, but didn’t move. He kept staring down at the young girl, “You comin’?”

The night time breeze blew, and Ellie looked back to the stars. There was no noise where they were – wherever that was. It was peaceful, and beautiful, and she loved it. Back with Marlene, she’d often heard of how people had gone camping before the infection. Marlene had told her about tents, and about campfires and about roasting marshmallows (which had seemed weird to her at first, but sounded mighty appetizing). Ellie thought she would have liked camping.

“Can we just stay here?” Ellie asked, tentatively. Joel stared at her.

“It’s cold, Ellie,” He argued, looking around, “And we’re in the middle of nowhere. The hell do you plan on doin’ if the infected show up?”

Ellie frowned and sat up. The ground beneath her hands was cold and wet with dew, “C’mon, Joel. It’s not even cold out! We can use our coats as blankets and the bags as pillows, and you got hearing like a clicker! We’ll be fine.”

“Ellie…”

The teenager stood up. Her ponytail swung behind her, and she started up at Joel innocently, “Please?”

“Why d’you wanna sleep on the ground, anyway?” Joel asked, looking away from the green eyes. 

Elle crossed her arms, “Because. Back when I was in the zone with Marlene, she used to tell me all about camping and campfires and stuff. And I think it would be nice to camp out under the stars, y’know? Only for one night, I swear.”

Joel stared at her for a few minutes, before he finally dropped his bag on the ground, “One night. And I can’t give you a campfire.”

With a pleasant grin, Ellie flung herself back down onto the ground, fishing around in her bag for her jacket. She pulled it over herself when she held it in her hands, and laid her head back against the bag. The breeze blew again, chilling the air, but she didn’t feel it as much. She was mostly just happy and excited; there was no room for cold. 

Joel eased himself down onto the ground beside her with a grunt. He put his head back against his bag, much like Ellie had, “I’m not gonna be able to get off the goddamn ground tomorrow.” 

“Stop complaining,” Ellie reached over and slapped his arm, “Aren’t the stars beautiful?”

Joel linked his arms behind his head, and Ellie could have sworn from the corner of her eye that he was smiling, “Yeah. Pretty nice.”

“Did you ever go camping? Back before everything?” Ellie asked softly. She supposed could have whispered and still have been heard. It was that silent on the ground, with nothing but trees around. She also supposed that she should have been worried about clickers, or the infected, but she wasn’t. She looked over at Joel. 

He had his eyes closed, “Sarah and I went out a couple times,” His voice was a little thick, much like it always was when he talk about Sarah, “She liked to put up tents. And roast marshmallows. Y’know, I think you’d like that too.”

“Too bad we don’t have any. Sounds like a bunch of fun,” Ellie was grinning again. She rolled over on her stomach and looked and Joel, kicking her legs up and down, “Man, we should do this more often. Next time we can get a fire goin’, and maybe we can scrounge up some—“

“Whoa, now,” Joel chuckled. He pulled his jacket over himself and tried desperately to get comfortable. His bones ached, “Don’t go gettin’ ahead of yourself.”

Ellie sighed, “This is nice, y’know? It’s quiet and pretty, and the stars are real nice. Makes sense why people would like it.”

The silence of rest after a long day and the beauty brought by nighttime settled over the two. Joel closed his eyes, and tried to forget about the pain in his back for Ellie’s sake. 

“Go on now, get some sleep,” Joel told her, rolling on his side, “It’s a long walk to the next zone, and I don’t need you fallin’ asleep on me.”

Ellie smiled and closed her eyes, “Night, Joel.”

It was quiet, for a minute, “Night, kiddo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to say thank you to all of you that reviewed and/or favorited, because your feedback means so much to me! I hope that you’ll take the same time to review again for this chapter, because of reasons. 
> 
> And I hope to God this was in character.


	3. Snow Angels

“Holy shit, Joel!”

Joel immediately snapped out of his thoughts, and turned his head sharply to where Ellie’s voice had come from. He saw nothing but the white of the snow on the ground, and the flakes falling from the clouds above. It took only seconds for him to feel the same adrenaline he felt under attack.

“Ellie!” His voice was lost to the wind and deadened to the snow, “Ellie! Ellie, where are you?”

“Over here!”

The voice was to his right, he was certain. He took off at a job, face battered by the snow like a boat battered by the ocean. He squinted through the sheets of white. The best he could tell, Ellie was in the abandoned house in front of him. He pushed through the pelting snow and into the house, keeping against the walls. The door shut quietly behind him. 

Crouching down, Joel listened to the silence in the house. He could hear nothing, but it didn’t stop him from being cautious. Even clickers were capable of being somewhat stealthy. Joel squeezed his eyes shut tightly, hearing nothing but the beating of his own heart in his ears. Ellie.

Fighting his way past moth-eaten furniture and wide open cabinet doors, Joel raced for the sliding door that led to the back yard of the house. He slid it open and pushed through it.

“Ellie!” He shouted. Movement in the corner of his eye made him turn his head.

Ellie was standing beside him, a grin plastered on her face. The back yard of the abandoned place was lined with evergreen trees; they blocked the biting breeze, and their thick branches refused to let any snow pass, save for that falling from directly above. Joel stared at the young girl, who didn’t seem to be hurt or bothered or scared at all.

“Ellie!” This time, she turned to look at him. She was still smiling, a sort of awestruck smile, “Ellie, are you hurt? What’s the matter?”

The child shook her head, “No, Joel! Look!”

She was pointing to the ground. Joel saw a blanket of snow. Nothing poked out of it, nothing was lying in it; it was simply a plain, white patch of snow. Nothing special. Relief now flooding through the depths of his chest, Joel looked at Ellie questioningly.

“The hell are you talkin’ about?” The gruffness of his tone was borne off by the wind.

Ellie’s eyes were lit up with some kind of childlike wonder; it was the same kind of look Joel had seen years earlier in Sarah’s eyes on Christmas morning, or upon seeing the first flakes of snow fall from the sky. In fact, he was quite certain this was the same look he had seen in Ellie’s eyes when she had reached up and stroked the neck of the giraffe months earlier. 

But this was not a giraffe, or the first snowfall of the year, and it was certainly not Christmas morning. Ellie grabbed his wrist.

“The snow is perfect!” She exclaimed, “There’s not even any footprints in it!”

Joel was absolutely stunned. Unable to keep his jaw in line, he stared at her, mouth agape, “You scared the shit outta me,” he began, “Over a patch of goddamn snow?”

“Joel!” Ellie reasoned, “It’s perfect snow! Don’t you get it?” 

“You could’ve been hurt!” Aware now that Ellie was not dying or in danger, Joel was admittedly a little angry with her. All this over some snow? 

He didn’t know she was dragging him until he was stumbling through snow up past his ankles. Joel grimaced, feeling it build up in his socks and shoes. His feet would be soaked for days. He sighed, but it was obvious that Ellie couldn’t hear him – that, or she was ignoring him.

“Ellie, what’re you doin’?”

Ellie tugged on his wrist, “C’mon, lay down! I wanna try something!”

“I’m not lyin’ down in the snow, Ellie. It’s cold. We gotta get to someplace warm, soon.”

She pulled on his arm with all the strength her little arms could muster, and they both tumbled to the ground. Joel groaned. Fantastic. Another thing he’d feel in the morning. Joel straightened his legs out and lifted his neck slowly. Ellie was beside him, lying flat in the snow with a smile on her face.

“Ell-“

“When I was back in the Zone with Marlene,” Ellie began, raising her voice to be heard over the wind, “She told me all these stories about winter time, before the infection. Y’know, snowmen and stuff. And she told me about these things where you start movin’ your arms and legs up and down, and then when you get up, it looks like…what the hell did she say?”

All the while she’d been talking, Ellie was making the movements that the woman who’d taken care of her had described. Joel watched with eyebrows raised.

“Snow angel?” He offered.

“Yeah! Snow angel, that’s it,” She said. A look of determination flashed across her face, “C’mon, now. You gotta do one too!”

Joel opened his mouth to argue, “Ellie-“

“Joel.”

He gazed up at the white sky above him, one that was crumbling with white flakes landing on his face, and he thought about his own childhood. It had consisted of very few snow angels; rather of snowball fights between himself and Tommy, which generally did not end well. He turned his head back to Ellie, and he smiled.

“Go on then,” He said to her, “Your angel ain’t finished.”

They lay there, side by side in the snow, moving their arms and legs until Joel stopped. He didn’t get up right away, and he wasn’t sure whether that was because he was revelling in the moment, or if it was because he couldn’t get up. It was Ellie that got up first, flailing and making sure not to step in her angel by accident. When she noticed Joel was still on the ground, she held out her hand to help him up.

They both stood proudly over the snow creations. Ellie frowned, “Don’t look much like an angel.”

“I think you’re s’posed to use your imagination.”

Ellie shrugged, “Still, pretty cool. And you can’t deny the feeling you get when you see a fresh patch of snow.”

Joel chuckled, “Yeah. No more worryin’ me, alright?”

“No promises,” Ellie said. She spun around, wiping the snow from his back and doing the same to herself. Joel watched as she headed back through the abandoned house, “Time to go?”

“Time to go,” He agreed, “If you’re lucky, we can make a snowman later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am ashamed of this chapter and I am honestly hesitant to post it. But it has its cute moments at the same time, so I must give it a chance and post it anyway. Please try your best not to be offended by its lack of workmanship. Hopefully you will enjoy #4 better than this one!


	4. Swimming

The sound of running water was the only thing that could be heard in the woods. Even from hundreds and hundreds of feet away, between the soft chirps of birds and the rustling of branches in the winds, the river that ran through the forest was still audible. The water was clear and cool, and while it moved quickly over the rocks below, the current wasn’t strong enough to pull the legs out from underneath a human.

The crispness of the water and his initial sudden entry into it gave Joel a jolt. He wasn’t expecting it to be so cold, but then it occurred to him that fall was closing in, and that before long that same river would be frozen over. After a couple of minutes of submerging himself up to his chest, the initial temperature shock wore off, and a pleasant warmth from the blood rushing to his extremities settled over him. The water wasn’t deep enough for Joel to be able to swim decently at his height, so he sat down on the riverbed and ignored the poking and prodding of the rocks below.

It felt good to swim, and to feel the dirt and blood on his body wash away downstream, but he was more concerned about how he would get dry afterwards. He dipped his head under the water and tried not to think about it. When he resurfaced, he wiped the water from his eyes and looked around at the surrounding forest.

“Ellie?” He called, gruff voice echoing off the trees. Water dripped from both head and beard, “Where are you?”

She wasn’t far, but she would not – no, she could not – come out. She clutched the tree, knowing exactly what was coming.

“Ellie,” His tone was more stern this time. Maybe there was a hint of concern there, too, “C’mon now. Where are you?”

Ellie stepped out from behind the tree hesitantly, clasping her hands in front of her. She was close enough to the river that she could see Joel sitting in the water, and he could see her, but she was far enough away that he couldn’t pull her in.

“What’re you doin’?” The tiniest bit of a sigh entered Joel’s voice. He reminded himself to be patient. 

“Y’know,” Ellie replied, looking at the ground and wringing her hands, “Just hanging around.”

Joel stared at the teenager for a moment, before hoisting himself back up to a standing position. He put his hands on his hips. 

“Now, Ellie,” He started, and Ellie didn’t know whether or not to frown at him. She hated ‘now, Ellie, “Get on down here. You were the one askin’ for this.”

She took a hesitant step forward, “Is it cold?”

“No,” Joel reassured, blatantly lying. The girl took another step forward, then another, “Ellie, c’mon. We don’t got all day.”

Ellie was standing by the river bank now, still wearing her shoes and sweater, still with her bag slung over her shoulder. She took a deep breath, “Okay. I’m comin’ in.”

Joel watched her with a raised eyebrow. He was soaked to the bone, and the breeze had picked up. He fought off a shiver in the hopes that it would convince Ellie that the water was warmer than it actually was. She stepped closer to the water, and Joel crossed his arms over his chest.

“Ellie.”

The girl looked up, “I’m tryin’, okay? Last time I went in the water I almost died.”

Joel certainly remembered that. “Shoes?” He reminded her, looking down at the worn out runners, “Leave that jacket behind, too. You’re gonna want something dry.”

Slowly, Ellie slipped off both shoes and socks, and then her warm striped sweater. Wiggling her toes, she took a deep breath and tentatively slipped one foot into the clear water.

And promptly screamed.

“Holy shit!” She squealed, retracting her foot and staring at Joel with wide eyes, “Joel, what the fuck? You said it wasn’t cold!”

Joel did his best to bite back a laugh. Perhaps it wasn’t very nice of him, but Ellie deserved it for wasting so much time. He waded through the water, right up to her. She back away. 

“Yeah, well, were you gonna get in if I said yeah?” He questioned. Ellie frowned at the logic.

“I can’t get in there.”

Joel tried to grab her wrist, but she backed away, “Ellie. Now.”

Hugging herself tightly, the teenager took a deep breath. Her foot still felt frozen, and she wasn’t looking forward to having to put the rest of her body in the water, but she had asked Joel to teach her how to swim, and she was certain the spark of pride inside her wouldn’t let her quit just yet. Ellie placed her foot back in the water again, instinctively shuddering upon experiencing the cold.

“Oh crap,” She squeezed her eyes shut, stepping into water up to her knees, “O-oh crap. Fuck, it’s cold!”

Joel sat back down on the riverbed, the water cutting off at the beginning of his chest. Standing flat footed, the water went up to Ellie’s hips. The height difference made him chuckle. She was still hugging herself, shivering from the cold and standing rigidly still. 

“Come on now,” He said, gesturing her towards him, “C’mere. We’re losin’ time.”

Ellie tried to wade through the water towards him, looking decidedly uncomfortable, “Oh, Jesus. Shit, shit, shit.”

“You’re fine,” Joel reassured her, “You gotta put your head under, Ellie.”

“F-fuck, no,” Ellie stared at him, mouth agape but teeth chattering, “It’s cold.”

Joel closed his eyes and sighed, “Then plug your nose.”

“What?”

“Do it,” He said, and when she did, he pushed her under the water. He didn’t hold her there, and he watched to make sure she was okay, and then he pulled her back up out of the water. 

Ellie’s mouth was open, and there was water dripping from her bangs, her ponytail, even from the tip of her nose. She wiped it from her eyes and blinked at Joel. He mouth was once again agape.

“You bastard!” She pushed him in the chest, but she was fairly certain she wasn’t really mad at him. Mostly just cold, “Shit, Joel.”

He ignored her, like he usually did when she was calling him names. He stood up and moved beside her, crouching down a little to be at her level. He stretched his hands out. 

“Lie back.” 

Ellie glared, “You’re s’posed to me teachin’ me how to swim, y’know. Not lie around.”

“Ellie,” Joel was growing increasingly frustrated, “You have to be able to float. Lie back.”

Deciding that it was probably in her best interest to do so, Ellie laid back. She could feel Joel’s hands underneath her, propping her up, and she felt much safer than she had at first. Water rushed into her ears as she tilted her head back, and everything became amplified and muffled. She spread her arms and legs out like a starfish, and tried to pretend she wasn’t as cold as she felt. She couldn’t deny the breeze, though; it was chilling her to the bone. 

Eventually, Joel retracted his hands. Ellie didn’t notice until he was moving about away from her, watching her with what could only be describe as a look of very subtle pride. She grinned, still feeling water in her ears, and sat up on the riverbed, just like Joel had. Her head poked out of the water, but nothing more.

“There. Look at that,” Joel said, smiling at her from his spot, “You got the first step down, huh? Now c’mon, get on your front.”

“I’m gonna die of hypothermia,” Ellie remarked darkly, though she knew she was having far more fun than she let on. Hell, they’d be able to go anywhere once she learned how to swim, “And so are you.”

Joel raised an eyebrow and smiled, “Yeah. But you’re swimmin’, aren’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was inevitable. I know the idea has been done to death, but you can’t have a Joel and Ellie story without swimming. It’s impossible. So forgive me for the lack of originality, and I hope I’ve done this beautiful image justice!


	5. Dancing

The walls of the abandoned building were growing over with vegetation; ivy, thorny weeds, pesky little dandelions, even small patches of clovers. The ceiling in one corner of the room had crumbled, leaving a pile of bricks on the ground and letting rays of sunlight through. Joel and Ellie’s footsteps echoed around the room, the sounds bouncing off what was left of the high ceiling and reverberating back around to their ears. 

Ellie was standing on what must have been a stage. Wooden boards were broken on its edges and the odd hole or two were scattered around like traps. She frowned, making lazy spins in a circle on the one spot she knew was safe. She kept her arms out for balancing purposes.

“Hey, Joel?” She took his non-answer as an indication he was listening, “What do you think this place used to be?”

Joel turned his head to see her. He had been scavenging for bullets, alcohol, anything really. They were running low, and he didn’t feel like making a stop at Tommy’s. 

“Well,” He reached for another two rifle bullets glinting in the sin from the top of a cargo box, “You’re standin’ on a stage, and there ain’t any chairs around. Probably an auditorium, or somethin’ like that.”

Ellie’s bottom lip jutted out in thought, “The hell’d they used to do here?”

“Speeches, presentations – that sorta thing,” Joel meandered his way over to Ellie, standing in front of the stage, “Sometimes, if these places had seats built into the floor, they’d have plays and musicals in ‘em.” 

Ellie stopped spinning to look at him. She was dizzy, “Musicals? Like, singing and dancing?”

Joel nodded. He leaned forward against the stage and pushed himself up onto it. Ellie resumed her spinning, watching Joel as he looked around for any left behind items. 

“Marlene told me about musicals, once,” Ellie mused, stopping her twirling again and shoving her hands into her pockets, “She said when she was little, before the infection, her parents took her to see The Lion King. You ever heard of that?”

“Yeah,” Joel nodded again, the slightest of smiles creeping across his face, “Sarah and I used to watch the movie. It was one of her favorites.”

Ellie shoved her hands deeper into her pockets, kicking a stray piece of crumbling brick around the stage floor, “I always wanted to learn how to dance.”

Joel didn’t realize he was chuckling until Ellie shot him a look. 

“What’s so funny?” She asked indignantly, putting her hands on her hips and frowning, “C’mon, now! Tell me!”

“Nothin’,” Joel assured her, smile still on his face, “Just didn’t really picture you as much of the dancin’ type, is all.”

Ellie, who was not actually in the least bit offended, shrugged her shoulders, “You’re probably right. I just thought it’d be kinda cool to learn, y’know?”

“What made you think that?” 

The young girl’s brow furrowed, and she went back to kicking the brick, “Nothin’. I mean, back in Boston, in the zone, I saw this old billboard thing. And there were these two people on it and they were dancing with each other. It seemed kinda nice.” 

Joel didn’t answer. Instead, he reached to the corner of the stage and picked up a rag lying by itself. He shoved it in the pocket of his backpack. He’d noticed for a long time now that Ellie had been growing more and more distant. She still interacted with him, and she still spoke, but…something was not right, and Joel knew it. 

“I had to dance with Sarah when she graduated,” He said, very quietly. Ellie only knew he was speaking because he was standing right behind her, “From elementary school, I mean. They had this big old celebration; y’know, cake and little cardboard diplomas and stuff.”

Ellie was not quite sure of how to respond. When Joel talked about his past, it always made her uncomfortable. She still wasn’t sure why. She kept quiet, then, only turning around to face him. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was looking at the ground.

“And, uh,” Joel stopped to clear his throat, looking and feeling just as uncomfortable as he sounded, “They did this parent/child dance thing. So we danced.”

He was staring very intently at some unknown point over Ellie’s shoulder. Ellie looked down, then up, wringing her hands. 

“Look, Joel,” Ellie began quietly, her voiced no more than a whisper, “I’m real sorry ab-“

“Quit that.” Joel said. His tone was once again gruff, like it usually was, and his voice was no longer catching thickly in his throat. There was something else there that Ellie couldn’t put her finger on. Anger? She wasn’t sure.

She stared at him a while before speaking, “Quit what?”

“Quit apologizin’.” 

Joel turned his back to Ellie, looking around for a way onto the balcony of the auditorium. There weren’t any ladders around, and he didn’t see any dumpsters that were moveable. More importantly, however, Joel couldn’t push the guilty feeling from the pit of his stomach. 

“Hey,” He turned back to Ellie, “C’mere.”

Ellie, who had been planning on sitting down on the stage while she waited for Joel, turned back to face him, “What?”

“Just c’mere. Watch your step.”

The young girl sidestepped around the holes in the rotting stage until she was standing in front of Joel. He shrugged off his bag, reached down a little, and grabbed Ellie’s left hand. His other wrapped around her back gently, albeit a little uncomfortably. Ellie raised an eyebrow and looked up at him.

“What’re you doin’?”

Joel straightened her by pulling her up, “Hey. You wanted to learn to dance, right?”

In an attempt to force herself not to smile, Ellie sort of grimaced. She looked up at him, arm hanging limply at her side. The sunlight was growing ever hotter and brighter, and it made Joel’s face a white, blinding patch of skin. She squinted.

“So what do I do?” 

Joel moved the arm hanging at her side up to his back, trying to be as less awkward about things as he could. Dancing was certainly not his forte. 

“Now, uh,” Joel began swaying back and forth with the little girl, “Most people just move around like this, but there’s real dances, ‘n stuff. They just look kinda stiff. This is how Sarah and I used to dance.”

Ellie swayed with him. It was getting warmer in the auditorium, mostly because there was absolutely nothing blocking the sunlight from drifting in through the crumbling ceiling. Again, she jutted her bottom lip out in thought.

Everything around her was calm. The birds were tweeting in the sky outside of the auditorium, and there hadn’t been rain for days. There were no infected; at least none where she or Joel could hear them. It was peaceful, and she was more than grateful for that. Joel was still swaying to some imaginary music, but he was far from paying attention.

He closed his eyes. The music in his head was the same music that he’d heard on the night he’d danced with Sarah. It was soft, by some singer he’d never heard of, and it was about as sappy as he could ever have imagined. And it was beautiful, a melody that made him happy he was alive, and happy that the little girl he’d had so young was holding his hand; dancing with him at her elementary school graduation.

And for a moment, everything in Joel’s life was beautiful again. Just for a moment.

“Hey, Joel?” Ellie said tentatively. He shook his head to dislodge the thoughts, and then he looked down at Ellie. She’d stopped moving.

“Yeah?” Joel was quiet. He loosened his grip on Ellie’s hand, but didn’t let go, “What’s up?”

Ellie scrunched up her nose, “Dancing is nice, and all, but, uh.”

In some sort of mutual understanding, Joel dropped Ellie’s hand and moved his from her back. He stepped away from her, “Yeah. Lame?”

“Just a little. The billboard made it look a lot more fun.”

Joel stepped away, separating them and chuckling to himself at the same time, “Let’s get outta here, kiddo. C’mon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t think I like this one as much as the others, so I’ll probably rewrite it. I just kind of fell in love with the idea of them dancing when my friend Cameron suggested it, and then I couldn’t get it out of my mind and it kind of turned into a mess, but no matter. Regardless of the quite possible OOC in this case, please review. I love all of you, and I’m so grateful for each and every one of you.


	6. Grave

“It’s, ah, it’s just up ahead here. Over this hill.”

The ambulance was still in the same place Joel remembered it, which was strange. He’d never imagined that they wouldn’t have moved the wreckage, or at least tried to do something with it. It was a rusted piece of metal now, the white and red paint reduced to almost nothing but oxidized steel. There were, however, no corpses. Good sign. And as for Joel, it eased the memories. 

Ellie was behind him, her footsteps climbing down into the small valley where the ambulance lay and up the small hill to the edge of the highway. Joel stopped at a patch of dirt, different because it held no grass, and because it was marked with a small wooden cross. That was new. Joel had never seen that before.

“Here we are.” He murmured. His voice was gruff, but that was because it was catching in his throat. He felt like all his airways were closing up, and it was all he could do to keep himself breathing, “It’s, ah, it’s not much.”

The footsteps behind him came to a halt. Ellie crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself tightly. She looked down at the cross, the white, wooden object, and she looked over at Joel. He was rubbing his hand gently over his face. She watched the emotions wrestle across his face; pain, resolve, regret. 

“Did you put this here?” She asked quietly, gesturing towards the cross. 

Joel shook his head, bending at the knees to inspect it. They made a sickening cracking noise, but it went ignored by the older man. He touched the wood gently with one hand, “No. I, uh, I never came back. Didn’t get much of a chance, bein’ moved to the zones and everything. Ain’t got a clue who left this here.”

“Maybe Tommy.” Ellie suggested, crouching down next to him. She watched Joel closely, afraid that this hadn’t been one of her better ideas. She had wanted to come, and he had simply obliged. But he had been far more open about Sarah since the incident at the hospital, and that had been very encouraging, “Will you tell me what happened?”

The wind whistled through the trees, down the empty highway. The cross bent in the breeze, the weak wood already cracking and the paint already fading from the rays of the sun. Joel was silent.

“Too much?” Ellie asked weakly. 

He nodded, “Too much.”

They were quiet then, listening to the trees and the birds, staring at the small patch of dirt that had no doubt been trampled by years and years of feet; feet of survivors, of runners, of clickers and bloaters. And in her own way, Ellie thought it was beautiful that the little cross was still standing. She smiled a little, and placed her hand gently on the ground below her. 

“I never got to bury her,” Joel’s voice was catching again, just at his Adam’s apple. He swallowed harshly, watching as Ellie jumped at his voice, “With all the fuss, me and Tommy gettin’ out of there…I never got to bury Sarah. We had t’ leave her.”

“Right here?” Ellie’s voice was as quiet as she could muster. She watched Joel carefully. Now was not the time to overstep her boundaries.

The older man shook his head, “No. Uh, Tommy and I got her to one of them damn triage things. The nursing stations, y’know, like back in Utah? They made us leave her there. Y’know, infection panic. Didn’t see her ever again after that.”

Ellie didn’t answer him, because she didn’t know what to say to him to make him feel better. Should she relate with a story of Riley? Could she possibly bandage the wound with another ‘I’m sorry’? And because she didn’t know what to say, she did nothing at all, until Joel swallowed heavily again and spoke to her.

“Why’d you wanna come here, anyway?”

She perked up, remembering exactly why she had wanted to visit Sarah’s grave, or rather, the place she had died. Ellie flung her backpack from her shoulder and tossed it on the ground, ripping the zipper open almost savagely. Joel watched her, curiosity blooming over the sadness in his belly.

“What’re you doin’?”

“Shh,” Ellie shushed him, digging around in the dirty bag. 

When she pulled her fist out again, she held a small handful of purple flowers, ripped from the ground none too gently and still carrying some of their roots. Ellie pressed her lips together tightly in the best smile she could muster, and placed the flowers in front of the cross. 

“Marlene always told me it was important to pay your respects to someone when they died,” She started, “That’s why I wanted to give Sam and Henry a proper funeral, y’know? But, uh, that wasn’t real easy for us. So I thought I should bring Sarah somethin’ nice. Y’know?”

For a second, she though Joel was going to cry, but then his face broke out in a smile, and he laughed gently. He looked down at the dirt of the ground below him, then back to the cross and the purple flowers in front of it. He offered a happier looking smile to Ellie.

“You’re somethin’ else, kid.”

Ellie smiled back, and Joel pulled himself back to his feet, feeling the pain once again in his knees. He reached for Ellie’s hand and pulled her back up. She shoved her hands in her pockets and looked up at the man.

“Hey, Joel? Let’s get the fuck outta here,” Ellie suggested, “I’m startin’ to feel real down.”

Joel spared the makeshift grave another glance, “Yeah. Let’s get outta here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried cute but angst sort of happened? I confused myself, too. It’s okay. I don’t know if I like this one either, so I might rewrite it. Later. Probably never, but false hope is still hope.


	7. Singing

“You think anyone’ll find us here?”

Joel inspected the contents of the house’s second bathroom. During his entire onceover, all he’d managed to scrounge up were a few half empty bottles of alcohol and a rag or two. Helpful, but most certainly not enough. He stepped back through the hallway, the floorboard creaking gently under his feet.

“Don’t think so,” He murmured, voice catching in his throat, “Isolated. Too quiet.” 

Ellie was sprawled out on the beaten up, half burned couch in what was once a living room. A lot of the furniture had burn marks; even the floors were a little charred. But the walls were intact, and that was the important thing. Ellie nestled her head on the arm of the couch, a piece of couch fluff tickling her cheek, and closed her eyes. 

“Nice place.”

She wished she had a blanket. The inside of the house was a lot cooler than the outside, which was strange because it was fall and the winds now carried a chill. But who was she to complain? There wasn’t much that could be done about it. 

Joel entered the living room and turned off his flashlight. It was pitch dark in the room, save for one window that let the faintest rays of the moonlight into the building. Aside from the couch, the living room was pretty bare. It held a smashed up TV, a broken coffee table, and a fairly well looked after arm chair. The rest had to have been looted, stolen by someone convinced they needed it more. Joel tossed himself into the arm chair.

Outside of the house were crickets, making their chirping noises. Joel closed his eyes. Ellie rolled over on the couch, tucking her knees up to her chest and squinting through the darkness at Joel. She could tell from the pace of his breathing that he was on the forefront of sleep. 

“Hey, Joel?” Ellie asked tentatively, “What’s your favorite song?”

He had barely started to drift away. His eyelids were heavy, and so he didn’t open them. Rather, he made one of the sounds more accustomed to his persona. 

“Hm?”

Joel could hear Ellie flip over on the couch and pull her knees up into her chest. He couldn’t see her in the dark, but she had stuck her bottom lip out in curiosity. Ellie breathed in a gulp of the fresh night air before repeating her question. 

“You, ah, you told me you wanted to be a singer. When you were younger. So what’s your favorite song?” 

The question threw Joel. It was a long time now that he’d even thought about music, let alone his favourite song; hell, he didn’t even really know if he had one. Opening his eyes just a crack, Joel stared off into the dark emptiness of the abandoned living room.

Nothing really came to mind when he thought of his favorite song. As a country man, it was rather easy for one to guess all of the big artists he liked; Hank Williams (Sr., of course), Brad Paisley, Willie Nelson, even a little Jason Aldean every now and again to modernize things up a bit. But while he loved them all and loved their songs, they were never really his favourite. And there was no way in hell he’d ever remember the lyrics. 

He settled for an answer that didn’t satisfy Ellie in the slightest, “I dunno. Never really thought about it.”

The following flurry of movement could only be the sound of Ellie sitting up, “Oh, c’mon, Joel! There’s gotta be some fuckin’ song that’s your favorite!”

The corners of his mouth pulled up in some semblance of a smile. It was not often that he was inclined to grin at something, but sitting in the dark with Ellie arguing over some trivial thing like music was just something destined to make him laugh.

“Then what’s yours, huh?” Joel challenged, sitting back up in his chair, almost straight, and crossing his arms over his chest, “You do a lot of talkin’, but I ain’t hearin’ you answer your own questions.”

Ellie laughed, a bright sound in a dark place. She stretched her legs out on the couch and stared at the ceiling. She and Riley had found a single package of damaged glow in the dark stars, once. Ellie didn’t know what they were until Riley had placed them on their ceiling just before dark. When they illuminated the small quarters in which they slept, Ellie had been something akin to awestruck.

She wished now that she had some glow in the dark stars. Even some real ones would be a half decent substitute. 

“I didn’t hear a lot of music back in the Zone,” Ellie mused, fiddling with her fingers, “But this one time, Riley and I found a tape player and a tape, and we played it, and it was a guy named Don something. I don’t, uh, I don’t remember his last name or anythin’.”

Joel smiled, “Don McLean?”

“Yeah!” Ellie’s eyes lit up, and Joel almost saw the look of recognition from across the room, “Yeah, that’s him. And there was, uh, this song. American Pie. And we decided it was our favorite song. Riley liked it the most, but I thought it was kinda nice.”

It was quiet, then, between the two. The smile still played on Joel’s lips, and Ellie still stared at the ceiling, without its stars. 

“Gotta say. Never pegged you to be the American Pie type.” 

Ellie bit her lip to keep from laughing, “Oh, fuck off! At least I have a favorite song!”

Stretching out his legs in the armchair, Joel closed his eyes again. His eyelids were feeling very heavy when he heard the sound.

“Did you write the Book of Love, and do you have faith in God above? If the bible tells you so…” 

It took him a couple of seconds to figure out that the cracking, tired voice he was hearing was Ellie’s, and that she was singing her favorite song to him. He smiled again, and noted to himself that he was doing a lot of that lately, and that it probably was going to come back to haunt him later as some sort of weakness.

He let her go on for a couple of lines, not judging or commenting, but rather listening to the voice of the young girl. It had been so long since someone had sung to him. In fact, he couldn’t even remember the last time something like that had happened. Maybe as a child?

And while she sang to him, Joel thought about all of the songs he remembered, and whether or not he liked one above all the rest. Ellie was midway through the first chorus of the song when Joel interrupted her, opening his eyes again. 

“You wanna know my favorite song?” He said, watching Ellie closely. She blinked, and in the dark he could see her head move in a nod, “You won’t know it. And it’s, ah, it’s not somethin’ that I really listened to anyway.”

Ellie sighed, impatience clear in the way she forced the breath out, “If you didn’t listen to it how, is it your favorit-“

“Just, quiet for a second. I used t’ sing it to Sarah when she was a little girl, right before bed. I guess it’s my favorite. ‘S called Beautiful Girl.” 

The room was quiet again. Ellie didn’t ask him to sing to her, likely because she knew it would result in a resounding ‘no’, and that it would probably upset him. Joel swallowed and closed his eyes again, knowing that the conversation was now probably over, since Ellie had the answer she had waited for. The girl rolled onto her side and curled up, settling down to sleep.

“’Night, Joel. Thanks for talkin’.”

Joel didn’t answer her. He listened to her breathing for a few minutes, and after a while, it slowed. He knew she wasn’t asleep. She knew he wasn’t asleep. But for a moment, they both could pretend that the opposite was true. 

“Beautiful girl, let the sunrise come again; may the weight of the world resign. You will get better.” 

The words were the same that he’d sung to Sarah more than twenty years earlier as he tucked her into bed. Ellie, who on a normal occasion would have felt more than victorious about getting Joel to sing to her, settled into the couch to let him continue.

She fell asleep to the sound of his voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually updated and I am rather proud of myself. I don’t like this chapter though, so. Nonetheless, there really is a song called Beautiful Girl, and it’s by William Fitzsimmons, and it’s beautiful.


	8. Movies

They have been back at Tommy’s compound for three weeks when the power comes back on. Admittedly, the plant itself has been finicky since the moment Tommy and his crew inhabited it, and the break from being fully powered to back to basics is more than expected. All the same, when the lights flicker on the night he and Ellie are eating dinner in the dark, Joel’s stomach floods with relief. He looks up from his can of whatever flavourless junk they are eating that week and meets Ellie’s eyes. She half smiles, worn out from a busy day and longing to rest her head against the springy mattress plastered into the floor of her makeshift bedroom. Joel tries to return it, but he is hardly in the mood to be smiling at all. The last few nights, the nightmares have been so vivid they leave him sitting up in bed, shoulders shaking with sobs that are so quiet he is sure he is the only one that can hear them. After they hit, it is impossible to for him to get back to sleep, no matter how hard he tries – and he has tried. 

Tommy and Maria have no idea about the kind of trouble Joel is having, and realistically, he doesn’t expect them to. They are wrapped up in electricity and crops and ‘twenty families strong’; they are wrapped up in the idea that no matter what, there is always hope. To Joel, the whole concept is so very Tommy – looking for hope where there is none; waiting for it to roll in on the edge of a storm cloud. And by the time those storm clouds roll in, Joel is sitting up against a cold metal wall, wiping tears on the back of his hands, wondering what the hell he did to deserve having images of Sarah and Tess and Ellie on that operating table burned into the back of his eyelids. So when the lights flicker on during that dark dinner, Joel can only hope that the electricity can offer him more than his usual routine, hope that it can take his mind off of whatever it wants to flock to and keep the memories at bay. 

Ellie yawns and looks down at her food can. It is empty, but her stomach still rumbles with the sounds of insatiable hunger.

“Looks like it’s gonna be a good night,” she tries tentatively, watching Joel. Since the incident at the hospital, talking with each other has been a task of walking on eggshells, trying to not step on each other’s toes. And Ellie knows that something is not right, because just like those eggshells, there is a crack between them, and there is no way she can ignore it anymore, “Think they’re gonna keep it running this time?”

Joel can only bring himself to give her a one word answer, “Maybe.”

They sit in silence for a while longer, although they are no longer in the dark, until Ellie stands up with her food can in hand and looks down at him. Joel will not meet her eyes, “Well, uh, I’m gonna go hit the hay. I’m pooped. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He grunts, a sound that comes from the back of a throat suddenly so dry that he starts looking for water, “’Night.” 

They part ways for the night, Joel feeling mighty guilty for being so damn cold to the little girl, and Ellie wondering what the hell she has done this time to make the usually quiet man even quieter. 

For hours later, she is awake, hearing sounds she has never once heard in the three weeks she and Joel have spent at Tommy’s compound. They are breathy, pained sounds, and at first, Ellie reaches for her gun, convinced that some runners have managed to get past the electric fence. But these are not the pained noises of a victim to cordyceps. They are not the primal sort of sounds that the infected carry. These sounds are like shattered glass, the sounds of someone who has woken up with a mind battered, broken, and cut raw. Heart beating frantically, Ellie rises from her mattress and creeps towards the door, swapping her gun for her switch blade. She opens the door quietly, the hinges creaking despite almost a year of use. In the hallway, the sounds are louder, piercing the silence like a knife – and, to her surprise, they are coming from Joel’s room. Ellie leans against the wall, taking a deep breath before turning the handle of his door. 

The room is dark, but in the moonlight coming through a high window she can see Joel leaning against the wall, knees pressed to his chest as tightly as he can get them. He is looking straight at the floor, his shoulders trembling and his elbows resting on his thighs. Ellie takes a tentative step into the room. Joel does not notice her at first – he is talking to himself in whispers that Ellie does not understand, still making the pained noises she had heard from her room. 

“Joel?”

He looks up, jumping a little from the shock, and looks at her with eyes rimmed red from tears. Ellie is thrown by the spectacle. She is used to the quiet Joel, but this is something entirely different; this is something she’s never seen before. This is not the Joel that keeps his pain to himself, or the Joel that pushes away the people that care about him. This Joel is broken, and Ellie finds herself more scared of that than almost anything the two of them have faced together. When he does not answer her, Ellie steps closer to him, placing one foot on his mattress.

“Joel?” She tries again. Again, there is no answer. Ellie reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder, “Joel? Are you okay?”

Joel shakes his head, because he is not sure whether or not he is able to speak. Ellie’s hand travels from his shoulder to the palm he has resting on his thigh, and she tugs on it.

“Hey. Come on, I know somethin’ that’ll make you feel better.”

He allows himself to be dragged from the bed, quiet and still shaking. The images in his head have never been so vivid, never been so much like the real thing, and he is unable to stop himself from feeling guilty over all the things he cannot help. He allows Ellie to pull him through the silent, dark hallways until she stops in front of what is essentially a small common room. When she opens the door, Joel looks at her questioningly. 

“What’re you doin’?” His voice is small and broken, but the gruff tone is still there.

She leads him into the room and forces him down cross-legged, in front of the small TV set Tommy salvaged from an abandoned house. Ellie stares at him.

“I hate bad dreams.” 

Joel remembers those words from their first day together, and they send a strange wave of icy calm through his bones. Ellie holds up a finger and crawls over to a box beside the TV. There is a collection of DVDs there, and the one she selects makes Joel smile weakly against his will.

“Dawn of the Wolf: Part 2. You said you saw this one, but ‘m still not convinced that girl doesn’t get gutted. I mean, look at the poster! It’s bizarre.”

In this little room in the middle of a power plant, Joel feels more at home and more calm than he’s felt in a long time. The images behind his eyelids are not gone, but he can feel them melting into a different place – a place where he is no longer plagued by nightmares and what-ifs. He closes his eyes, remembering the movie in Ellie’s hand and seeing it years earlier with Sarah. 

“Joel?”

He takes a deep breath through his nose, “You ever even seen a movie, kid?”

A grin splits Ellie’s face, “Nope. You keep showin’ up for all my firsts, you know that?”  
Joel laughs, and the chuckle seems to fill in the crack between them that Ellie has been so anxious about. Ellie puts the disc into the DVD player and turns the TV on. The picture crackles to life, and Joel realizes that this is the first time in a long time that he’s seen a working television. As the opening credits roll across the screen, the two lean back against the wall, watching with all the attention and devotion of young children. 

Sitting there, watching the ‘dumb teen movie’, Ellie realizes there is no place she would rather be in the wee hours in the morning, and Joel decides that maybe, just maybe, the nightmares aren’t as bad as he thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's bad, but at least I updated?


	9. The Ocean

They stumble onto a beach in the middle of the night, wind whipping at their hair and biting into their skin. Joel is bleeding somewhere – not that he’s even sure where ‘somewhere’ is – and Ellie is shivering against the breeze that threatens to blow her into the trees. High in the sky, the moon filters through the clouds, letting in light like a boat that’s sprung a leak. Beneath their feet, sand crunches down, wet and packed together tightly. 

“It’s cold down here.” 

Ellie’s voice is just loud enough to be heard over the wind. There’s nothing else on the beach but the wind whistling past, shaking the rusty poles of a quarantine fence, and the sound of the waves lapping at the shore. Joel steps softly onto the sand behind her and swings his tattered bag off his shoulders.

“Here.” He hands her the plaid jacket she always wears, but this too is worn and ratty. Ellie grabs it from him and slings it loosely over her shoulders, revelling in the way that the flannel warms up her skin. Gradually, the goose bumps on her arms begin to fade back into nothing.

Neither of them realize it at first, but they’re standing on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. They both know it’s a large body of water – that much is evident. Joel stares out at the line of the horizon in the distance, barely visible; the sky melts into the water like ice into fire, creating waves the billow out gently towards the shore. There’s no sign of land in the distance, at least from where he’s standing. Just an endless, calm current. 

“Know where we are?” Joel asks her, breaking away from the ocean. His eyes are bloodshot and tired, lids heavy from lack of sleep. Ellie meets his glance and notices just how much he’s aged in the past year. She can’t decide whether or not it’s a good thing. 

Ellie shrugs her shoulders, tightening her jacket around her middle. Every now and then the wind breaks, just like the crests of the waves yards away from her feet. It’s a welcome relief from her hair flapping around her head.

“Well, it looks a lot like water to me, to be honest.” 

Cringing from pain that he thinks is in his side, Joel still manages to roll his eyes. Despite everything that’s happened, Ellie still has that dry humor of hers. He drags himself closer to her and smacks her gently on the back of the head.

“Not cool, asshole!”

She feels the weight of his hand clap against her backpack, and she hikes it up onto her shoulders. Ellie eyes Joel curiously as he stares back out over the water.

“Got any water puns in that stupid book?”

Rather than answering him, Ellie looks around. The beach is nothing special. The sand is a dark brown, packed in from the afternoon’s rain, and the shore is littered with driftwood and filth. In a different place, maybe at a different time, it would have been nice. At least, she can see the appeal to it. Lying in the sun, feeling the heat on your skin, listening to the breeze move the tree branches off in the distance. Ellie closes her eyes and tries to imagine it. There are some things she knows she can never have.

“Atlantic Ocean.” 

Joel only says the two words, and they’re huffed out quickly in that rough voice she knows so well. He knows they’re in North Carolina, on the coast, right at the tip of the North Atlantic, but he doesn’t tell her that. Ellie deserves more than that – he figures she deserves the wonder of seeing the ocean for the first time without him spoiling it.

The girl’s eyes flicker open, and suddenly she’s back from sunny days and gentle oceans to the cold night air. She looks at Joel, and he knows exactly what she’s going to say. That’s something that’s been happening quite a lot lately – sometimes, he just knows what she’s thinking.

“First time seein’ the ocean.” It’s not a question. He says that, Ellie notices, like it’s just been checked off on a list. She makes a face at him.

“You sound like some kinda travel book.” She says, and she weaves her way through the broken quarantine fence. The chain link is rusted and torn, and Ellie wonders what kind of monstrosity must have come through there, and what must have happened to the people on the beach. She shakes the though away and steps towards the waves. 

“The hell do you know about travel books?” 

Joel’s voice is off in the distance now, but she knows that in minutes he’ll be following her down, keeping his eye on her. He’s been like that ever since the winter. At the edge of the water, Ellie crouches down and puts her hand into ocean. The waves seem to suck the dirt and blood off her hands, carrying it back with it into the centre of the ocean. 

“More than you think,” she says, though her voice is merely a murmur under the wind, “I like to read. Y’know that.”

“I know.”

There’s a quiet understanding between them as they stand at what feels like the edge of the world. Ellie looks out onto the water, still crouched, the waves further out enveloped in shadow. They rock back and forth until they reach the shore, where they crash at her feet, soaking into her shoes. There’s something about the ocean that’s more beautiful than any other body of water she’s ever seen. For a second, Ellie finds it hard to believe that the world ever came to an end.

Joel is watching the waves when he feels the first sprays of water hit him. He blinks rapidly, and turns to face the direction that it’s coming from.

“The hell—“ 

Ellie is standing up, a wicked grin on her face, her hands cupped in front of her like a bowl. It takes a moment for Joel to process what’s happening before he realizes that Ellie has thrown another handful of water at him. He feels the droplets slide down the side of his face this time, soaking into the collar of his shirt.

“Ellie,” He starts. The tone in his voice is familiar, because it’s the tone he uses to scold her, “The hell’re you doin’?”

“That’s what you get for scarin’ me earlier!” 

He takes a minute to think it over, wondering if he really did scare her.

“What the—“

Another handful of water, salty and cold, splashes him in the mouth, and when he clears his eyes he can see Ellie getting a head start across the grainy sand of the beach. Joel is bleeding, tired, and now he’s cold, and more than anything he wants to grab Ellie by the shoulders and talk some sense into her.

Instead, he lets her run ahead of him, and he picks up his own jog, ignoring the pain in his sides. 

“Get back here!”

“Try and catch me, old guy!”

He follows her, of course, watching her run and smile and laugh, and Joel wonders if this is anything like what normal is supposed to be. He can’t bring himself to remember, and he’s not sure he _wants_ anything to be normal again. 

They leave the beach when sky melts back into dawn. The sun creeps up slowly that morning, shedding thin tendrils of light on lines of footprints in the dark, grainy sand.


End file.
